Hanging at the Belay station and checking out the ...
Description
From the parking lot, two obvious water grooves can be seen. These are The Water Cracks. Scramble up to the base and belay. Follow the left groove, past bolts to a ledge. Descend to the right.
one of the most obvious and unique lines in tuolumne. you better be cool-headed and bring some chalk if 5.7 is hard for you. i think that experienced wide/mountain climbers call this 5.7, and the rest spend a lot of time lunging to knee-stances and chalking up.
four or five bolts and chains at the top. a 70 would do it in one pitch. a 60 requires a little simul (which might be spicy as the opening friction is one of the harder technical moves and the leader is run out 40 feet).
Some folks just barely toprope it with a long 60m rope if they rap in and stretch the rope out beforehand. i bring a couple nuts and a couple small aliens (and really long slings) for the first moves of the climb and the corner before the water crack proper. most folks just gun it on draws.
in '06 three tourist teenagers downclimbed all but the last ten feet of the route. in tennis shoes.
And it's totally classic.
By Greg DeMatteo From: Flagstaff, Az May 17, 2007 rating: 5.7
The water cracks are great mostly for their unique climbing and the obviousness of the features. Doesn't suprise me about those tourists...I've had to warn off several from trying to climb UP it in their tennis shoes with no rope.
If you fix a line to the rap anchors on the ledge you can tick off all the routes in the vicinity in short order and the rope can double as an anchor for some of them.
By Rob Davies UK From: Cheshire, UK May 8, 2009 rating: 5.8+
Quite hard bridging, sorry stemming, moves but each one is above a big ledge. Weird and wonderful